Plan B.

I have some input here that should give you some on the ground validations to your questions, at least it did to me. I toured Europe by car (thousands upon thousands of miles in 18 days) in lieu of going home to my wife at the near end of my combat tour. I had been stabbed and thus went on leave for a few weeks. This was in October 2008.

Here is what I noticed: Spain was a literal disaster area. Trash service was minimally functional, landscaping was not happening and even the beaches and things were full of garbage. Spain was experiencing a internal market implosion of labor vs wards of the state. At that time unemployment was estimated at 28%, it is worse now.

Greece functionally seemed just fine, people were eating, laughing and carrying on as per usual. It however became pretty obvious there were alot of people out of work for an entirely different reason. They wanted more for less. Greece for the last 400 years has been a textiles and fishing nation. Many attempts at skilled labor, factories even Peugot tried to get a factory going. The biggest issue for them is education, a fundamental difference between them and Spain.

This same situation is playing out in the United States. We have 45 million unskilled workers and maybe 10 million of them have managed to keep the same job for a year. The quality is so far down it's becoming desperate for the trades. Employers all have the same grief. "We want to pay you...if you'd actually show up." They also suffer in skilled trades, everyone thinks college=easy money, 20 somethings the world over were told this is true. It could not be further from the truth. They are neither skilled nor smart. Nobody wants an employee that generates problems, they want problem solvers, this is not the case with our working age college graduates as a whole.



Ethics are another problem, drug use, thievery, attitude problems, laziness, attendance. Recognize this stuff? It's everywhere, and because it's so pervasive it's reduced even smaller businesses to outsource their labor involved processes to countries who can get it done and meet their targets. I don't really want to beat the corporate drum here but as much as I'd like to justify bringing jobs back to America...is that even feasible with two or three generations of functionally retarded people who without the aid of their smartphone cannot solve simple every day problems? Can't read a map, can't multiply, can't show up on time...can't check or change the oil in their car. Can't can't can't. But that's the actual problem. Mike Rowe is ABSOLUTELY correct in that skilled trades are the ONLY way to recovery in this country, because farming out our children to the most expensive babysitters in the world (universities) in hopes that knowledge sticks is laughable. You know it's bad when you seek out a patent lawyer and the first thing he does is check GOOGLE...I'm sorry I didn't seek you out so you could regurgitate an answer from the internet.

We want change, well...have to BE that change, it's the only choice, and no choice at all.